


The Sands of Lehon

by Firecadet



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Star Wars Setting, Canon Divergence - Star Wars Expanded Universe, F/M, Light BDSM, The Trousers of Time
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-10
Updated: 2018-01-05
Packaged: 2018-09-23 09:15:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 14,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9649361
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Firecadet/pseuds/Firecadet
Summary: When faced with a choice deep in the tombs of Korriban, Vestara Khai makes the hardest decision she's ever made: To do what a Jedi would do, not what a Sith would. The consequences will change her future drastically, along with that of Ben Skywalker.Meanwhile, Luke Skywalker receives a call from an old friend of his father's, drawing him into the line of fire between shadowy groups from the Jedi Order's past.Rated M due to scenes of realistically described violence and its consequences, scenes of a mature sexual nature and the discussion and depiction of bondage, although there is minimal lemon





	1. The decision

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When I first started to write fanfiction, Ben Skywalker and Vestara Khai was my primary pairing. Some of the material I produced for them was an acceptable quality by my current standards. Some of it wasn't, and was frankly appalling.  
> A few months ago, I found myself writing part of this story on a whim, looking at the dynamics of their relationship, had it moved past attraction and love to physical consummation.  
> One of my head-canon elements for Ben is that he would potentially have an interest in bondage and control, after some of the events of the Legacy series.

_ I need to save Ben! _ Vestara Khai, Jedi apprentice, and former apprentice in the Lost Tribe of the Sith, thought, looking at the creature that had incapacitated her boyfriend. Next to her, Natua Wan stood in a fighting stance, facing down the thing.

_ It would be so easy to incapacitate her, Let it have her, and save Ben. But... _ Vestara suddenly felt a confluence of moments. In some, she died. In others, Ben died. Sometimes she sacrificed Natua to the creature, sometimes she sacrificed herself. But what she remembered most about that brief vortex was the look in Ben's eyes when he found out her decision.

She took it suddenly. She didn't think. Her hand dropped to her belt, rising with her breath mask. It was just a standard mask, but every Jedi carried one on their utility belt. In a heartbeat, she pulled out the small roll of mesh tape, and a pair of metal strips from her belt, before attaching them to her shikkar. Her father had handed it to her, months before she killed him.

She had time for one sentence. "Natua, get Ben out of here!" She shouted, as she lunged forwards at the two metre creature. It felt ridiculous in that moment, attacking something that could ward off the strike of a lightsaber blade with nothing more than a glass dagger, even if it was force-imbued.

Ducking under a slice of a claw, she slashed upwards with the dagger, feeling it catch in the hide of her opponent. But she also felt a yield, and a penetration. The reinforcements to her dagger stopped it snapping off. Another massive blow missed her by inches as she attacked again, this time plunging the dagger into the thing's throat. Even mesh tape and two durasteel strips couldn't prevent the dagger breaking off, leaving her holding nothing more than the hilt.  
Then she ran, ducking under a reflexive slash from Natua's lightsaber, before they both grabbed Ben's arms, one each, and ran for the surface.

  
-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-

Luke was sitting by his son's bed when Vestara came to visit him.

"Vestara." He said, looking at the keshri girl. He trusted her, to a fair degree. It was the trust of someone who'd allow her to follow him into trouble. In a starfighter he'd probably decline to offer her the unshielded rear of his starfighter, though.

"Master Skywalker." She replied, looking him in the eye. "I wanted to know if Ben had woken up yet."

"Not yet." Luke said. "I'm proud of you, by the way."

Vestara started, looking at the Jedi master as if he'd just grown a second head. 

"You've been trained as a Sith. Ruthlessness, casual murder, the removal of inconvenient persons, all that sort of thing." Luke explained. "And you're put in a situation in which your boyfriend is incapacitated, and at risk. I know you could have done a number of things. But what you chose to do was to put your life on the line. I shouldn't have sent the three of you into that tomb without the right weapons." Luke admitted. "Somewhere like Korriban... you should have been carrying vibroblades."

"You couldn't have predicted that thing would be down there, Master Skywalker. Or that it would be lightsaber proof." Vestara pointed out.

"I couldn't." Luke agreed. "But I could have predicted some of the creatures produced by Sith Alchemy would be lightsaber resistant. And taken the correct precautions. I didn't. And... Thanks to you, the consequences for my son are minimal."

Vestara hesitated, before steeling herself for the real reason she'd come looking for Luke Skywalker.

"Master Skywalker... I was doing some cadences earlier. And... My lightsaber no longer felt like it sat in my hand well. It kept twisting slightly, and felt unbalanced."

"When did you build it?" Luke asked.

"I didn't, Master Skywalker." Vestara admitted. "I was handed it by Lady Rhea when she took me as her apprentice."

"And it now feels wrong in your hand?" Luke asked, looking to confirm something.

"It does."

He smiled. "I know why." Luke Skywalker said. "I know what option you could have taken. Natua." He didn't condemn with his tone. He just stated the name.

"I could have. If I wanted to end up breaking Ben's heart."

Luke smiled at that, before thinking back to a quote he'd found preserved in an old Jedi archive. "Love doesn't lead to the dark side. Passion can lead to rage and fear, and can be controlled... but passion is not the same thing as love. Controlling your passions while being in love... that's what they should teach you to beware. But love itself will save you... not condemn you."

"Wow." Vestara said. "I guess even the Jedi..."

"We have our moments." Luke said. He held his hand out briefly, and was unsurprised when Vestara placed her former lightsaber in his hand. With a smile that struck Vestara as someone who is pleased by something, he reached into a small case at his feet.

"In time, you will construct your own lightsaber. For now, though, you need a weapon. You will be the fourth Jedi to bear this lightsaber. My father bore it. I bore it. My wife bore it. And now, I hand it to you to bear with honour." He offered her a lightsaber hilt that showed age and use, but somehow felt like she was being offered the Sword from The Stone.

She reached out to take it. As her hand brushed the hilt, she saw a flash of vision. She saw the weapon cutting down children, unarmed and terrified. She saw it slice into and through a line of Jedi. She saw lava. And then nothing.

"Ves?" She heard. Ben's pet name for her sounded strange from Luke Skywalker.

"I saw... things." She explained. "I saw terrible things."

"You saw Order 66." Luke explained. "You know the history of our Order. My father... betrayed the Jedi Order. He led the attack on our temple on Coruscant, the night the Jedi Order fell."

Cautiously, Vestara reached of her hand for the lightsaber again. This time, there was no vision. It just sat in her hand. It felt like it had been made for her. Stepping outside of the medbay aboard the Shadow, Vestara ignited the lightsaber. It burnt a sky blue. A series of cadences confirmed what she'd felt as it settled in her hand.

She hung it from her belt, and stepped back into the medbay. Luke Skywalker looked up and nodded, before stepping away from Ben's bed.

"I'll be meditating." He said, leaving her alone with his son.

-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-

A few days after the near-miss, Ben Skywalker was up and about. He hadn't entirely recovered yet, and he knew that it would take a while. Even though he hadn't suffered a physical injury, and was as fit and well as usual... he knew he wasn't at his best.

When he got back to his cabin, Vestara was waiting for him, with a lightsaber hilt he recognised sitting on her belt.  
"He gave you Mom's lightsaber?" Ben asked.

"His father's, yes." Vestara replied. 

Ben noticed a couple of things as she got up. The first was that she was wearing a voluminous Jedi robe, with the hood dangling down her back.

The second was that she wasn't wearing very much else. That observation was pushed into second place when she stepped forward and just kissed him.

"I thought I was about to lose you, Ben Skywalker." She growled in his ear. "Never do that to me again."

"No promises, Ves." Ben replied, before returning her kiss with added interest. It wasn't long before Vestara pressed herself against him, a process that reminded him very clearly that she was a female humanoid.

"Barv." She muttered, fondly. "I love you too."

Then she guided his hand somewhere it hadn't gone before. Inside of her robes. Ben blushed furiously as his hand was placed top of one of Vestara's breasts underneath her robe.

Somehow, it wasn't long until she was wearing her birthday suit, and his standard clothes were in a small pile on the floor.

"I knew you looked this good under your robes." Vestara said, running her hands over a set of muscles that owed nothing to bodybuilding, and everything to an active lifestyle. Ben had shed what puppy fat he might have once carried. Underneath his robes, it was nothing but defined muscle. It wasn't impressive in volume, just clearly defined, smooth muscle.

Vestara fell, in return, into a category Ben associated with physical beauty. Caramel skin overlaid muscle, with just enough excess to ensure that Vestara was nothing but stunning. Ben had known he'd struck lucky with the person who'd fallen in love with him. Everything physical about Vestara was just a bonus. If she'd had the body of a Gamorrean sow, he doubted it would have made a difference, once he'd got to know her. He kissed the little scar at the side of her mouth, the one that gave her a perpetual smile.

Vestara looked into a pair of sky blue eyes, as warm as high summer. Ben gazed into a pair of eyes that glowed with an inner light as their lips met again, and their eyes closed.

There was a flicker of thought. Neither of them knew who'd suggested it first, who’d suggested crossing that final boundary. Vestara looked into her boyfriend's eyes.

"Ben?" She asked. "You're sure?"

"Are you?" He asked. Any hesitation would be enough.

"Yes." Vestara replied.

Ben kissed her again, as they staggered towards his bunk, holding each other firmly, until it chopped out their legs from underneath them.

It wasn't glamourous. It wasn't elegant. It was awkward, embarrassing and strange. Vestara knew as little about the real mechanics as Ben did. There was little more than fumbling, initial pain and discomfort, followed by the sense that the entire galaxy had just shifted completely and utterly.

Ben Skywalker opened his eyes, and looked into the glowing, beautiful eyes of Vestara Khai. His lover. The most precious thing in his galaxy. And he felt something deep within him lock into place, with the finality of a fifty ton stone door.

_ Ves? _

_ Ben? _

Neither of them had experienced anything like it, before that first golden moment, in the afterglow of their exertions.  
And they knew that nothing short of a Death Star would ever tear them apart.


	2. The Next Morning

Ben Skywalker had to secretly admit to himself that this wasn't the first time he'd woken up with a lithe female body pressed against his side, when he came to. The difference, this time, was that they were both utterly, gloriously naked. Vestara looked more beautiful than ever, curled against him.

He knew that what had happened between them was going to change things. That he loved her no less than she loved him. That they were both young and foolish. That maybe in time things would fade.

He didn't care about anything except how much he loved her now.

He felt something stir before she sat up, her eyes going to him immediately.

 _Ben?_ He heard, although it was far more complex than a collection of syllables. It seemed to be a collection of every emotion and sensation she associated with him.

 _Ves._ Ben replied. _I…_ he put every sentiment into the single message that he could.

 _I know._ Vestara replied.

 _Shall we?_ Ben asked, looping an arm around his girlfriend.

 _You really think you need to ask that question, Ben Skywalker?_ Vestara asked, as her hand trailed down from his hip.

-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-

It wasn’t long before Luke Skywalker came to, and very quickly became aware of what his son and Vestara were up to. Rather than embarrass them, Luke Skywalker very quickly shut himself down in the Force. This allowed him to avoid feeling any of the sensations the pair were producing.

Then he got on with his morning routine.

His first job of the day was to remove his artificial hand, before conducting a health check on it. A few jets of lubricating agent ensured nothing would jam up during the day. Two small servomotor connections were adjusted with a small hydrospanner, ensuring that they were in no danger of slipping, before being gently sprayed with a jet of lubricant. It was utterly vital to his life that he retained the use of his right hand.

Once he’d ensured his hand was going to continue working, he quickly went through the refresher. Toweling himself dry, he opened up to the force briefly. All it confirmed was that typical teenage enthusiasm was in full supply for Ben and Vestara.

He remembered himself at that age. Working on a farm, spending every moment he could in his T-16. He hadn’t been any different. He just hadn’t had a female of the sort Ben seemed to have landed for himself. He’d made up for it later. Then he’d met Mara, and other females had stopped being interesting for him.

Then Caedus had happened, and the solid core that had defined his life for twenty years dropped away.

Shaking off those thoughts, Luke headed for the kitchen. If he remembered the sort of nights, then mornings that accompanied two humanoids finding out things they’d never known before about each other, they were going to need a large breakfast.

It wasn’t long before he’d inserted a large platter of sausages into the oven. Bought at their last stop-over, he’d deliberately selected a corellian brand, even if that almost inevitably meant they would be spicy. Most corellian food was.

A brief memory of a happier time surfaced. Luke briefly smiled at the memory of a red-faced, sweating Tahiri Veila, guzzling Han Solo’s gizer ale after a close encounter with Leia’s spiceloaf. Anakin Solo, sitting next to her, had provided ample sympathy, hugs, and snuggling. Ultimately, Luke had acquired a sample of the spiceloaf, which he’d smuggled into Clighal’s lab for analysis. It’d registered 40,000 units on a scale of how hot it was.

It’d also been one of the last occasions he saw his nephew alive.

Alongside the sausages, Luke inserted a stack of hash browns, another staple of the corellian breakfast foods market. Taking advantage of the Force, even if it left him having to block things out briefly, Luke retrieved a frying pan while he extracted the bacon, and turned on the hob. Dropping the rashers into the pan, Luke left them to dry while he extracted a container of baked beans. They were placed into a saucepan, before he flipped over the bacon.

A quick mental scan told Luke that the two teenagers had finally stopped exploring their new bond, and were heading his way.

When Ben and Vestara stepped into the galley, Luke could feel the way the Force was moving between them. It almost felt like a vortex, which overlaid their presences.

"So... um... Dad..." Ben began. "Is it alright if we move into the guest suite?"

"Ben Skywalker." Luke replied, sternly. "You have decided to sleep with a Sith apprentice who has attempted your murder, betrayed us several times, killed her own father, and bought nothing but trouble into our lives?"

"Yes." Ben replied. "I've decided to start sleeping with her. And I seem to remember that your early relationship with mom wasn't exactly a holoflick romance." He paused, then continued. "Trouble is part of being a Skywalker. So is raw sex appeal, and the enmity of men in dark cloaks."

"True." Luke pointed out. "Particularly the bit about men in dark cloaks. Where do you see this going?"

"That depends on what Vestara wants." Ben replied. "If she wants... permanence, I'll always be there for her."

"You're seventeen, Ben." Luke pointed out. "Vestara is sixteen."

"So, I'm two years younger than you were when you blew up the First Death Star." Ben retorted.

"Yes." Luke replied. "You're making a huge decision, Ben."

"You must have had your head under the pillow last night." Ben replied, more of a bantering tone entering his voice. "I don't think we made that decision."

"Ben Skywalker, there is a massive difference between the Living Force and teenage hormones!" Luke replied forcefully. "The Living Force feels like a choir singing and a giant bell tolling once. Teenage hormones feels like you've had a really great time, and you want to keep going."

"Dad!" Ben retorted. "How in the nine corellian hells do you know what last night felt like for us?"

"Because I've been seventeen." Luke replied.

"It was box number one!" Ben stated, before Vestara spoke up.

"Master Skywalker, it didn't just feel like the entire galaxy had moved. It felt like something had fundamentally changed in the Force. I can sense Ben now, far more than before. I can tell he's looking at the griddle, and wants to make waffles, for instance." Vestara said, facing away from her boyfriend.

"You can move into the other suite, Ben." Luke said, after a moment. "Just be sure to take the box from under your bed with you."

"Yes, Dad." Ben replied, in a slightly sing-song voice.

"And don't forget your socks, underwear and smelly old tunics." Luke teased.

Vestara didn't entirely understand everything in the byplay as she watched Luke and Ben finish cooking breakfast, still sniping good-naturedly at each other. But it felt like... family.

 

-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-

Nar Shaddaa, Hutt Space.

The two hooded figures moved closer to their objective, pulling ski masks over their heads. The pair had had the factory under surveillance for weeks. They knew what time shipments went in and out. They knew what the guards did, where they patrolled, and when. They knew the arcs of the various CCTV surveillance cameras.

Ahsoka signaled to move in. Ideally, they'd be able to get in, get out, and drop the relevant datawork on the desk of a security officer without leaving a trace. Her accomplice signaled back.

Quickly, the pair scaled a set of high gates, before vaulting onto a flat rooftop. Some quick work with a datapad resulted in the access hatch popping open, allowing the intruders to drop onto a high catwalk, with drawn blasters. They were set to stun, but had the advantage of range over her lightsabers.

An unfortunate guard chose that moment to change his patrol route. Rather than stun him, Ahsoka waited until he was close, before clamping a sleeper hold around his neck. He went down quietly enough, and she dragged him behind a cupboard. Her accomplice kept watch.

"Berny." She whispered. "Watch the roof hatch. I'm heading for the server core."

"Yes, Mum." Berny replied, stepping into a shadow, and adopting a shadowy state of mind.

Ahsoka crept through the building, lightsabers at hand, trying to ensure she wasn't being observed. It wasn't long, though, before the server core became the last thing on her mind.

As she snuck past an air conditioning vent in one of the service tunnels, she heard something that made her freeze.

"Once we have the ingredient, we can move on to the second phase of our plan."

It didn't sound very useful, but it was enough that she wanted to hear more.

"With the right donor, I think we can prepare the serum."

"We'll need one who people won't come looking for." The first voice said. "I don't think the donor has much chance of still being breathing once the serum is extracted."

"We'll have to use an alien, then." The second voice observed. "Killing a human simply to ensure the success of Project Nathema would be a waste."

"The Jedi would notice. I know that they don't take all of the Force-Sensitivities like they did before the Emperor cleansed them from the galaxy the first time, but they will be monitoring them."

"There are probably some aliens on this moon we can take..." Second voice said, before an alarm sounded.

"Intruder Alert. Intruder Alert. Intruder Alert." Ahsoka heard rattling from the speakers as she hurried back through the service tunnel to the place where she'd left her daughter.

When she got there, the first thing she saw was a blur of lightsabers. She'd taught her daughter everything she could. It was showing, as her daughter went toe-to-toe with a massive warrior in black armour, carrying a pair of blood-red lightsabers. It was a stalemate, for the moment.

Ahsoka moved to intervene, before two more black-armoured figures came through the door, and lunged at her.

Ahsoka parried, knocking a lightsaber away with a backhand parry, before the other slashed at her head and neck, forcing her to spring backwards to avoid being decapitated. Setting herself firmly, she lunged into the fight, her pair of white lightsabers flashing a vivid counterpoint to her attacker's crimson weapons.

She countered a high cut, tipping it away, before flowing over a slice intended to remove her legs at the knees. She replied to that with a saber pommel, knocking her assailant back, and allowing her a moment to focus on one her attackers.

There was a furious exchange of cuts and parries, before Ahsoka sucked in her chest to avoid a thrust, which scorched her clothing. Her attacker was back-pedaling away from her, having lost a section of robe, and nearly his weapon arm.

She could feel more opponents closing in.

"Fly, Abernaa!" She yelled. "Fly!"

Her daughter tried to break off, and then a lightsaber pommel caught her behind her left montral.

She went down like a sack of potatoes.

Ahsoka screamed, before trying to cut her way to her daughter's side. Against three opponents and four lightsabers, she was overmatched, and she knew it. She was more than a match for any of them on their own, but with them co-operating, she wouldn’t survive the fight.

A vicious flurry of blows allowed her to maneuver below her entry point, and she just threw herself straight upwards, before landing on the roof, and running like a thief. None of them followed her.

Then, she shut herself down in the Force, and snuck back to the hatch.

"She'll do." One of the voices she'd heard before said.

"What about the other Jedi?"

"This one isn't a Jedi." The male voice said. "Wherever she was trained, she isn't a member of the Jedi Order."

"Could her partner have been the Huntress?" The second voice, a coruscanti accented male asked.

"Possibly." The first man replied, with an uncomfortable precision of diction. "I wonder what she looks like under this mask."

There was a rustle of fabric, before a low whistle.

"Almost a shame to extract the serum from her, really."

"She's not even human." The second man commented. "The way she and her partner fought, you wouldn't think an alien would be able to fight like that."

"I might offer her a ride to Lehon in my yacht, rather than aboard that slave freighter we normally use." The first voice mused.

"No." The second said. "She is going to use the freighter. And be glad of it."

 _There's a rift there I could exploit._ Ahsoka thought. She chanced a glace into the room, and saw her daughter being fastened into chains, trapping her hands behind her back, and then linking her ankles together and to her wrists. She was dumped onto a litter, and floated away as Ahsoka fought back tears of impotent rage.

 _I'll be back for you._ She silently promised her daughter as she snuck away. _And I’ll bring everyone I can. That’s a promise._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> apologies that this chapter took a while to produce. I had half-a-dozen plot threads to ID, plan and weave in, and even then, some of the ideas only happened during the writing process itself.


	3. Ahsoka's past

18.9 BBY, Sehron System.

Mek Grayscale looked down at the togruta his guards held, idly running his eyes over her body. She was about five foot eight tall, and muscled like a dancer. Even though she was physically quite attractive, possibly even desirable, he found her absolutely terrifying.

She’d been forced to her knees, with her hands secured behind her back. She was handcuffed, shackled and wearing a shock collar, but she still extruded a sense of 'Just you wait, you bastard. Just you wait...'.

He knew, almost instinctively, that enslaving this prisoner would be fatal for him, and most of his men. Not just because she was a trained Jedi, according to his men, but because she had an inner fire. This one would have taken a very long time to break, even if she wasn't a Jedi.

He could see the way her blue eyes were roaming the room, looking for anything she could weaponise.

She'd already had to be stunned twice, just while being dragged through his palace in chains. The first time, her shackles had come open, and she'd grabbed a nearby trophy sword from the wall. Ten guards had been escorting her. Six of them had died in as many heartbeats, even though they were wearing armour, and carrying blasters.

She'd been hit, barely, by a panicked hail of stun blasts, which had slowed her down enough to stun her completely. Her shackles had been reapplied with flexities wrapped around them, and the alarms on the locks activated.

The second time she’d rebelled, his men had been walking through a room filled with potted plants. Four of them had been concussed, and one had had his skull crushed by a 20-gallon stone planter. This time, they’d clamped a slave collar around her neck, so they could disable her in an instant if any more problems occurred.

“What is your name, Jedi Scum?” he asked, holding a massive pistol in one hand. Ten of his men formed an arc behind her, with levelled blaster rifles. They were positioned to avoid any sort of crossfire, or he didn’t doubt she’d have gone for him by now.

“My name, you sleemo, is Ahsoka Tano!” his prisoner replied, her voice low and dangerous. “Let me go, or the consequences will be on your head.”

-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-

Ahsoka watched her captor’s eyes light up when she gave her name.

“How much would the Hero with no Fear pay for the safe return of his padawan?” he asked. The grossly oversized human was lolling in his chair, barely able to keep hold of his pistol, even though it was the size of a small armoured vehicle. “Or should I say, his former Padawan!”

“Not a kriffing centicred, you laserbrain ronto-fondler!” Ahsoka replied.

He gave a signal, and her shock collar triggered, sending a surge of agony through her body.

“If you insult me again, you will suffer that twice over.” Her captor warned.

“Go hook up a power coupling with a gundaahhhhh….! Ahsoka screamed. It was about a minute before the voltage stopped flowing, and she could speak again.

“I’m not worth anything, you mudcrutch.” Ahsoka hissed. “The Jedi don’t pay ransoms. And even if they did, they wouldn’t pay one for me!”

“You have killed ten of my men, Jedi! And I will have my vengeance. Take her to the carbon-freezing chamber.”

Ahsoka lunged furiously at him as he gave the instruction, but was simply stopped in her tracks by the activation of her shock collar. The setting was tweaked until she lost all voluntary muscle control, and she was dragged into the chamber.

The last thing she saw was the lid of the chamber closing, and she remembered, briefly, a happier time in her life. There was a loud hiss, and then nothing.

-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-

Lux Bonteri had been searching for what and who he thought he’d found for close to forty years. Since losing the post of Senator when the Senate was dissolved, he’d had more time to search. Ahsoka Tano, his friend, and someone he knew could have been more to him, had vanished after leaving the Jedi Order.

He’d tailed her down through the years. An aide had heard a gangster bragging about an old associate who’d captured a rogue Jedi shortly before the end of the Clone Wars. He’d followed the trail to a bombed-out fortress. According to the locals, there had been a dispute between two criminal gangs, and the owner of what had been a fortress had lost. The site had been bombed from orbit.

He’d accepted her death then. Then another rumour had made its way to him, five years later, after the New Republic had re-instated the Senate. According to the rumour, a crime lord named Mek Grayscale had sold a carbon-frozen togruta to another gangster, shortly before his fortress was destroyed from orbit. Another trail suddenly came alive. Three of Onderon’s best government agents had worked tirelessly to trace the sculpture, until they reached the office of an insurance company on Coruscant. There, paperwork told them that the sculpture had been aboard a yacht destroyed by pirates nine years after the battle of Yavin. He’d cried bitter tears, that night, in the arms of his wife Leyla.

He’d thrown himself into the work he knew best, even as he continued to beat the grass. Trails had been followed. Canaries had been asked to sing until their voices went hoarse. Another trail had surfaced, eventually. A Nar Shaddaa salvager had talked to a friend about a yacht he’d helped scrap, shortly after the yacht carrying what he believed to be Ahsoka had disappeared. They’d been overheard, and the story of a togruta frozen in carbonite had made its way, via a number of greased palms, to his desk.

This time, eight of the best intelligence agents the Onderonian government possessed had been assigned to the case. Ahsoka Tano, after the defeat of the Empire, had been given a five metre statue, cast from solid bronzium, and plated with electrum. If there was any chance she’d survived… they wanted to find her.

This time, the trail proved murkier. A chain of gangsters, crime lords and hutts had held the statue. It’d passed through dozens of hands, and clocked up close to one hundred thousand parsecs during its travels. Then the ship carrying it, along with several trillion credits of disposable goods had vanished.

This time, there was a trail to follow. Police investigators had caught up with the thieves. Several of them had died in prison at the hands of other criminals. The items they hadn’t been able to dispose of had ended up as evidence, including ‘Carbon-frozen Togruta female, late teens. Unknown if person or mannequin.”

He’d turned the page in excitement.

The next item was a record of an auction, in which “Carbonite Sculpture (Togruta Female)” had been sold for twenty thousand credits to an art museum. The Museum still had it on the books. According to their records, there was no thought that this was actually a person. They listed it as a sculpture.

Lux had to check.

Three days later, he’d arrived in his official diplomatic transport, with an escort of entirely humourless, professional troopers from Onderonian Special Forces. He’d also bought something else. Years earlier, during a search with only his own wits and resources to draw upon, he’d bought a holostatue of Ahsoka. It had code in it that verified it as an official product licensed by the Jedi Order. It also contained biometric identification for Ahsoka, buried deep enough that only the most determined slicer would ever find it.

It was that that he thought would make the difference.

His arrival, in a Republic Senate speeder-limo shipped all the way from Coruscant, and tailed by an ambulance, resulted in a stir. Why was a Republic diplomat, from the Inner Rim, visiting a mid-core art gallery with a military escort, and an ambulance?

He deployed his security to block access, and stepped inside, escorted by the NCO, two senate staffers carrying a large case, several technicians, a slicer, two doctors and four paramedics, carrying a stretcher.

The director had already bustled over to the doors, wearing his best suit.

“Greetings…” he began.

“Mr… Gufrai.” Lux said. “Would you kindly escort me to your carbon-frozen Togruta?” he asked.

“Why…” he began, before noticing a slight shift on the part of the NCO. “Right this way, sir.” He said, before leading the cavalcade to the small gallery.

“We gave her her own private gallery.” He confided to Lux. “Some of the children come and stare at her face for hours. We even had a Jedi spend several hours in there once.”

“Did he say anything?” Lux asked.

“No.” the man replied. “He took a holo, though.”

“I’m here, MrGufrai, because I don’t think this is a sculpture or a mannequin encased in Carbonite at all. I think you in fact have a person. And have had her for five years, without ever checking if there was a person inside that block of Carbonite.”

“All of the paperwork…” he sputtered.

“If this is who I think she is, you have been displaying a friend of mine, a Jedi, for five years, without even basic due diligence being followed.”

“Senator Bonteri, I assure you, this is a sculpture!” the director insisted.

“Then you will not object to my confirming it.” Lux snapped.

The man started, then decided that any confrontation could be resolved by showing the VIP the sculpture.

Lux almost stopped breathing as he stepped through the doors. Ahsoka’s face looked exactly as he remembered it, and was surprisingly peaceful and calm. She was serene, even inside the block of carbonite. What broke the illusion for him was the clearly visible shock collar around her neck, and the fact that her arms disappeared behind her backs, along with the chains connecting her ankles.

The first thing that happened, once they were in the gallery, was a laser-scan of the carbonite block, to nanometre precision. The facial data was compared to the ancient biometric scan.

“Mr Gufrai, would you like to explain why a legally verifiable biometric scan of a Jedi Knight matches the biometrics of your sculpture?” Lux asked.

“They must have used her likeness!” he insisted.

Lux gestured to his medical team.

“Gentlemen, over to you.”

The next ten minutes were largely spent watching the experts at work, scanning, X-raying, and closely examining the sculpture. Finally, Dr Rowan Menaraev, chief of Carbonite Science at Coruscant University, and Professor Barhis Landala, one of the few medical specialists on Carbonite Freezing, came to their conclusions.

“There is a person inside this block of Carbonite.” The professor stated. “I am satisfied, beyond reasonable doubt, of that.”

The museum director nearly lost bladder control.

“Sergeant Mai, please contact Ord Tarith Police, and tell them what we’ve found. I intend to press charges against Mr Gufrai here as an accessory after the fact for false imprisonment, kidnapping, involuntary carbon freezing of a sentient being, holding a sentient being in conditions of slavery, and all other related charges.”

“Senator!” the man interjected, suddenly seeing his new gallery wing going up in smoke before his eyes. “Is there some arrangement we can come to?

“Yes. The immediate release of whoever is inside this block of carbonite.”

“How?” he demanded.

Lux gestured at his technical staff, and then guided the director a few paces back.

“I bought the specialists for this eventuality.” Lux explained. “They have everything they need at hand to extract Ah… whoever is inside that block of carbonite.”

It took twenty minutes for the medics and technicians to be satisfied enough to extract Ahsoka. They flicked switches, and turned dials. Lights on the side of the casing began flashing, before there was a red glow, and a soft whooping sound from the apparatus. Bright light began to appear as Ahsoka defrosted, and orange skin began to materialise.

Then Ahsoka fell forwards onto a waiting gurney, and was quickly festooned with medical apparatus, vital signs monitors, and an oxygen mask.

Two minutes later, Ahsoka began to try and move, shifting against her handcuffs. Lux gently pressed downwards on her back.

-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-

21 ABY, Badajoz System

Ahsoka had no idea how long she’d been frozen for. She couldn’t focus enough to touch the Force. Her head throbbed with agony. She couldn’t see out of her eyes. Her hands were still secured behind her back.

Fortunately, she had other senses that were working almost immediately. And they told her there was a friend in the room.

“Lux?” she whispered.

“Easy, Ahsoka. Easy.” He replied. The timbre of his voice was deeper than she remembered. “You’ve just been thawed out of Carbonite.”

“How long?” she asked.

“You’ve been in Carbonite for forty years, Ahsoka.” He said, knowing there was no way to sugar-coat the news.

“Forty years?” Ahsoka whispered.

“There’s been a lot of change.” Lux continued. “We’ll need to bring you up to speed.”

“Master Skywalker?” she asked.

“Later, Ahsoka.” Lux said. He gestured to the slicer he’d bought with him, and the man went to work on the togruta’s restraints and the shock collar.

Ahsoka stretched as her arms were freed, before rolling herself onto her back, and just going to sleep. Somehow, she felt as if she hadn't slept in a very long time.

-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-

It was several days before the medical team were comfortable leaving Ahsoka without a full crash team on standby outside of her room. Lux had arranged for her to be flown to Onderon, and had moved her into his house.

Then came the next step. Educating her about the galaxy.

There were tears as she learnt about the fate of the Jedi Order. He just held her, an older, comforting figure now, as she cried into his chest. He watched Ahsoka force herself to read the list of Jedi killed during Order 66, and afterwards. As a courtesy, the list included Anakin Skywalker. Her master, as far as Ahsoka would ever know, had died on Coruscant. There was no published history to dispute that, and barely a handful of individuals who knew the truth. Various leaks had resulting in the parentage of Luke Skywalker and Leia Organa becoming public knowledge. Someone had decided that Anakin Skywalker deserved to retain his reputation as a hero. And so Darth Vader had become a separate person, as far as the history of the galaxy was concerned.

He'd also watched the way his youngest son interacted with Ahsoka. He hadn't pushed the two of them at each other, but he watched, as a grandfather, as Ahsoka became close to his son Astrus.

Two years later, he waved goodbye to Astrus Bothari and Ahsoka Tano Bothari.

-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-

44 ABY, Corellian District, Nar Shaddaa.

Ahsoka remembered her favourite knock as she knocked on her own front door. 'Rat a tat tat tat... tat tat.'. From inside, she could feel her son pull the door open from a distance. Inside, Astrus and Anakin were crouched behind a metal table top that spanned the width of the entry hall. Both of them were holding blasters.

"Mom!" Anakin greeted her. Her son was fourteen, three years younger than his sister. Abernaa had been born in the second hear of the Yuuzhan Vong war, in a refugee camp on Mon Calamari.

She'd avoided the Jedi. It hadn't been hard. None of them had been screening refugee arrivals, even pregnant ones. 

Anakin had been conceived shortly after the end of the war, as, she suspected, had a few billion other children. They'd been content to live as refugees, after being forced off of a planet invaded early on.

Ahsoka's skills behind the flight stick of a starfighter had allowed her to fight a transport carrying several hundred civilians clear. Without near-reflex reliance on the Force, her experiences against droid starfighters had given her a huge edge against coralskippers. She'd had two other clone wars veterans helping her. All of them had somehow survived the engagement, despite the surprises they’d faced.

She'd trained her children the best she could. She could feel Bariss, her youngest daughter, upstairs. Aged ten, she was nearly as strong in the Force as Abernaa. She'd named her daughter for the friend she'd lost, not for who that friend had become. Anakin carried a lightsaber, with a silver blade. He'd used a small glass ornament to make the focusing crystal. Ahsoka's lightsabers were made using a pair of diamonds she'd bought on Mon Calamari. Abernaa had found the crystals for her blue lightsabers in a small shop selling mystical goods.

Bariss would be constructing her lightsaber soon, Ahsoka knew.

"Ahsoka." Astrus greeted her. "What happened?"

"We got caught. Whoever was using that place, they're not just slavers. I think... they're some sort of Sith Cult. And they have Abernaa." Ahsoka was barely able to keep her blinding terror out of her voice.

"Do you have a plan?" Astrus asked.

"Yes." Ahsoka replied. "I'm going to do what I swore I'd never do. I'm going to contact Luke Skywalker. And I’m going to do so without contacting the rest of the Jedi Order."

-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-

It took most of the morning for Luke to sit down the two teenagers, and start explaining some things they ought to be aware of. Or at least to do so for Ben. Vestara was in another room, having certain mechanics explained to her by Clighal, who was giving her the Jedi Order Twenty Minute Sex Education lecture.

"Ben, the only reason I let you and Vestara use the other stateroom is because it has an energy cage built-in. Not a serious one, just enough to ensure that a Force-Sensitive inside or outside isn't going to know what sort of amorous behaviour is happening on the far side. I want to get a decent night's sleep, so that means closing the door. Understood?"

"Yes, Dad." Ben replied, in a slightly sing-song tone of voice.

"As for what you said earlier..."

"I meant it, Dad." Ben replied, with the finality of a teenager in complete love for the first time.

"Good." Luke replied. "If this works out, you'll still be leaving the toilet lid open in close to a century. And she'll still be scolding you for it."

Luke knew that his son was experiencing true love for the first time. And he knew that Vestara felt like the galaxy orbited around his son as well.

The situation could be worse. He decided. Ben could be in love with his own sister or a smuggler, instead of a reformed Sith apprentice.

He watched from the doorway as a pink faced, slightly nauseous Vestara Khai stepped into the room, and then Ben's arms. And he felt the ripples of something deep within the Force as they embraced. They didn't kiss. Ben just held her, and she held Ben.

-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-

Abernaa Bontari woke up in chains. Her wrists were cuffed in front of her, and connected to her ankles by a chain. If she had been standing, her hands would have been kept below her waist. Instead, they were contained enough she couldn't attempt to interfere with her shock collar.

She'd always felt slightly uncomfortable next to her mother. Unlike Ahsoka, Abernaa's markings overlaid a human skin-tone inherited from her father. Her montrals were more or less fully functional, fortunately. Her siblings were in the same boat. They all shared their human father's skin tone, with markings similar to their mother's, and fully functional montrals. They could digest some plant matter, but mainly ate the all-meat diet of their mother. The process had been achieved by a medical alteration of her father’s gamete production organs, which had added a few more chromosomes to allow the expression of montrals and facial markings.

She sat in the near-darkness for what seemed like hours, counting the drips of water from the ceiling,

 Then, with a metallic screech, her cell door opened.

The man who stepped inside seemed utterly unafraid of her, and that was when she realised she was chained to a ring on the floor. A large, heavily armoured figure stood next to him. And that was when Abernaa realised she was going to die. Her captors weren't covering her eyes or their faces.

"Well, little girl." The unarmoured man human said. "You're going to help us a great deal. Admittedly, you'll be down here for a few weeks, while your transport returns. And if your mother returns, she'll either die or join you." He gloated. "Lord Verticus will take you to the refresher twice a day, and will give you an hour's exercise in between." He smiled, although it seemed as warm and genuine as one that moves very fast towards drowning men, with a fin on top. “I’m sure you’ll enjoy his company.”

Abernaa just curled up, mouthing swear words, and hoped both of them would leave.

-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-

After their daughter’s abduction, Ahsoka and Astrus moved quickly, closing up their apartment and removing any valuable items from it. They relocated to a small hotel Ahsoka had used as an observation point while planning her strike, hoping against hope that the transport which would ship her daughter to Lehon hadn’t already departed. If they were transporting slaves, they would have extreme difficulties doing so from any dock they did not control.

It was nearly two months before the transport took arrived at the facility, and Ahsoka was prepared for her com-call to Luke Skywalker. She was using a highly illegal scrambler to hide as much about herself as possible, with a pre-prepared script ready to hand. She didn't trust herself to speak to Darth Vader's son without it. Not after what he'd done to Skyguy, and every friend she had ever had.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quite a lot of exposition here, I admit. I felt that giving Ahsoka’s backstory its very own chapter was easier than a whole bunch of separate sections of backstory. I didn’t fully anticipate how much material that would involve. I’ve got the next two chapters written already, and will be improving/expanding/editing them significantly before they see the light of day.


	4. Chapter 4

Although the Jade Shadow wasn't a large ship, it had a surprising number of corridors. And it was starting to feel like home for Vestara Khai, formerly an apprentice in the Lost Tribe of the Sith. Not in the same way as the house she'd grown up in was home, but it was where her heart thought of as home.

She knew that even a tiny asteroid habitat would take on that sensation with the presence of Ben Skywalker. Even if he was a Jedi.

The human wasn't going to win male beauty contests. Certainly, not by Keshri standards. His face was fairly average, with a touch of his father's homely appearance offset by fine bones and fiery red hair she assumed must have come from his mother. The body connected to it was that of a young male in training; well-muscled, but without any attempt to develop show muscle. If she hadn't known his true profession, or perhaps calling would be a better word, she'd have taken him for a gymnast.

It was him she'd fallen in love with. Not because of physical beauty, like with Ahri, but because of his personality. In most ways, she was a farm girl. Trained force user or not, she'd been completely baffled by a simple datapad, the first time Ben had introduced her to Angry Ewoks. He'd been holding a device perhaps a centimetre thick, with one or two buttons on the sides. A keshri datapad was about the same thickness, but had a simple display, and relied on a physical keyboard. Ben had laughed, but not cruelly, or even at her. He'd been laughing at the way she'd looked at the datapad. It'd taken her two weeks to beat his high score. He'd laughed at that as well.

Another junction. She turned, almost by rote, before being pushed against the wall. The cold metal pressed against her skin, feeling chill even through her bathrobe. Open at the top, the garment displayed the area of smooth, unblemished skin that was guaranteed to stop the thought processes of almost any male humanoid. Her caramel skin, tanned from exposure to the sun on Dathomir, and on Kesh, made her almost irresistible.

Then she felt a presence fade into the Force like the clouds had parted. A kiss pressed itself against a particular spot on the back of her neck... she shivered as Ben held her in place, drinking in his scent and hers as they mingled. Her hands were captured, held together behind her in a strong, gentle hand. She knew, if she wriggled, she could probably break his grip. She didn't even consider doing so.

"I didn't think you'd be wandering the ship, Ves." He said. "Not when I'd taken the time to lay on some entertainment." Very slowly, a series of kisses flowed up her neck, over the smooth skin and the sinuous muscle that lay beneath it.

"I thought..." she broke off with a wordless gasp as his lips caressed that particularly sensitive spot again. "I thought you were in the galley. Fixing cheesecake." The food had been another revelation. Most luxury recipes on Kesh had been developed to make use of local products. No one had even remembered that the cacao bean existed. Never mind what products could be made with it. Her first taste of chocolate and strawberry cheesecake had... Ben decided that she'd been reminiscing long enough, and his free hand slid around her, stimulating every nerve as it passed.

"I'm sure we have some." Ben whispered. "But right now..." his hand stroked up her body, and she shivered as she remembered what her lover's hands were capable of. There was a slight tremor in her breathing as his hand brushed over her breasts, sending shivers through her entire body. Her bathrobe suddenly felt hot and constricting. All she wanted to do was turn around, and wrap her naked body around her boyfriend's body.

Instead, she whispered a single word. "Kreshul." It was their safe word, the one that signified how utter her trust was in him.

Ben let go almost immediately and stood away. Vestara felt something tingle at the way he'd obeyed her wish almost without thought. Then she set off towards the galley, sending a come-hither through their bond. It'd developed in the weeks since they'd first become intimate. Every moment, she could feel what Ben felt. Every moment, he could feel what she felt.

Right now, she could feel his puzzlement. He'd known what was on her mind, as his hand slid up her front, fingertips trailing. She knew what had been on her mind. She'd wanted that union in the force and between their bodies. If he'd just stopped in that moment, she'd have turned around and grabbed him. The fact Ben was wearing his CSF uniform sent another tingle through her. The next step would have involved another of those little things that an upbringing on Kesh had left her deficient in.

She had never learnt to cheat a magnetic lock. On Kesh, they were only found on doors. Doors that could be sliced with a lightsaber. Or bashed down with the Force. They weren't found on bracelets. Particularly not bracelets connected by a short durasteel bar. The result was a total inability to escape binders.

Ben, she'd found, sometimes needed to be in control. He'd never explained to her why. Once, she remembered, he'd almost panicked when an item of clothing had stuck to his skin. It'd felt like someone about to die. He hadn't introduced the binders immediately. He hadn't even taken control of her. It'd taken four weeks before he'd felt confident enough to hold her hands above her head. He'd given her a word then. Kreshul. Apparently, it was the name of an ancient warlord. He'd simply told her that if she wanted him to stop doing something, all she had to do was say it. He'd spent the next hour stroking a feather across her chest.

She'd only used it once before. Her hands had been too far up behind her, and Ben had come closer than either of them would like to dislocating her right arm. She'd been nervous, until he simply held her close, and just provided reassurance, not even moving to kiss her until she climbed on top of him and restarted proceedings...

This time, she wanted to talk, before they slept together. She needed to know why. He wasn't a controlling person, or driven to demanding concessions without an equal trade. But sometimes, when he tied her to their bed, or handcuffed her, she wondered if he'd let her go again. It wasn't fear. But it would probably grow into it, if she didn't nip it in the bud.

When she stepped into the galley, Ben was three paces behind her, although his uniform tunic had been shed, revealing a plain, ivory coloured Jedi undertunic beneath. With a smile, Vestara noted that the leather pouch on his belt was still there, and that it was bulging. He stepped past her, and dipped a small, purpose made dipper into a purple plastoid jar. Two of the mugs from the nearby rack floated down as he opened the jar, and he dropped about 46 grams of his father's hot chocolate powder into each of the vessels. Although hot chocolate was now a luxury, far more than before, his father had a total annual supply of around one hundred kilos of the powder a year. Ben had once calculated it as close to ninety cocoa trees, for two daily drinks for each member of the family, over the course of a year. Holding the jar up, before stowing it back into one of the cupboards, Ben noticed the small insignia on the top of the jar. It featured a rebel insignia crossed by two lightsabers, and the text 'by appointment to the Jedi Order, suppliers of beverage ingredients.'

When he turned around, Vestara's bathrobe had fallen open, and her left hand rested on the table, while her right supported her chin. Unlike if she'd deliberately done so, there wasn't a coquettish positioning of her chest, or a look on her face that encouraged speculation. It was almost innocent, as she stared at the computer generated star field on what, in real-space, would be a viewport. Instead, a complex program projected what the starfield would look like from the viewer's position. It was moments like this that reminded Ben what was beneath the poise and passion. She was a year younger than him, but her home world didn't have a particularly unified government, and still used draft animals. His... he shook off a thought of her freezing in a lounge at the private spaceport where the Shadow berthed on Coruscant.

"Ves?" He said, placing her mug next to her hand. "What is it?"

"Why?" She asked. "What happened?" The extra information convoyed through their bond allowed him to understand exactly what she was asking.

Ben sighed.

"About a year ago, closer to two, I was an apprentice. Not a good fighter, against another Jedi. I hadn't ever..." he paused. "Had cause to... bring forward the fifth line of the code. And then my Master changed. We encountered someone who'd been close to my father, back when the Jedi Order consisted of an untrained adolescent with a lightsaber and an old, wise hermit, and when Jedi meant: 'pilot who also carries a lightsaber' to most members of the Alliance. And she twisted him, gradually. He took me along for the ride, and eventually handed me a sniper rifle. He pointed me at a man called Dur Gejjen."

"What happened?" Vestara asked. She could feel the self-hatred Ben was going through, telling her this.

"I pulled the trigger." He replied, looking away from her eyes. "And then, my Master killed my mother. And blamed his Sith mentor for it. My father killed her, and Jacen, although he was calling himself Caedus by then, took the opportunity to try and turn me to this dark side."

"Oh, I can think how I might try that." Vestara teased.

Ben, she could feel, was suddenly upset, for a few moments.

"I was joking." She replied, rapidly. He wasn't someone she felt she would ever hurt of her own free will. But his sense of near-betrayal cut her to the core, in that instant.

"He brought me to his flagship, overpowered me, and placed me in a torture device called the embrace of pain." He continued. "It takes a victim to the edge of death, then returns them from the brink. And then it starts over. And keeps going."

"Khark." Vestara swore. Most keshri-dialect swear words were similar to their basic counterparts, but usually sounded more archaic. Or more formal. "How long?"

"I don't know." Ben replied. "It was like being on a rack, endlessly."

Without thinking, Vestara took her boyfriend's hand, and just squeezed gently, reminding him she was there.

It wasn't long, even with nearly half a litre each, before they finished their hot chocolate.

Vestara's posture changed gradually, until Ben knew exactly what was on her mind. With a grin, he took their mugs over to the saniwasher, and left it whirring away. Then he crossed over to Vestara, and simply took her hand. With a surprisingly quick motion, Ben locked a binder around her right wrist, before pulling arms out of her bathrobe sleeves, then her hands behind her and securing her left wrist to her right. With a smile, he tied the bathrobe around her neck, and made sure it was secured around her hips.

It took them a couple of minutes, hand in hand, to reach the cabin they'd moved into when they told Luke Skywalker they were now in a sexual relationship. Ben was simply enjoying being close to, in his biased opinion, the most beautiful girl in the galaxy. Vestara was enjoying being around a person who made her feel like a death star wouldn't get through to her. She'd seen the film one night, when Ben had decided to annoy his father with the most melodramatic retelling of the events leading up to the destruction of the First Death Star he could find. Among other things, it featured Han Solo allowing a bounty hunter to hold a gun on him, rather than just shooting through the table. It also made far too much of his father's attraction to Leia, turning her kiss for luck from a peck to a long, passionate kiss. They'd never felt like that. Vestara, on the other hand, remembered the way Ben had just held her, gently, and allowed his father a running commentary.

Once the door slid shut, Vestara's bathrobe was quickly discarded, as were her handcuffs. A brief flicker of force energy allowed Ben to activate the sonic dampeners in the room, cutting off any sound from the outside. They also contained any sounds produced within. Another set of dampers contained the Force information, and ensured that Luke Skywalker could sleep while they were together.

Gently, Ben ran his hands over his girlfriend's body, rising from her feet to her neck. Like most Force-Sensitives, Vestara didn't have much physical muscle, although what she did have was rarely concealed by very much fat. The overall impression for Ben was that she was physically beautiful, by the standards he applied. Her face, with the little scar that gave her a permanent wry smile, was beautiful by any near-human species' standards. Gently, he peeled her out of her bathrobe, as she helped him remove his clothing. The two stepped towards the bed in unison, the edge dropping Ben down on his back, Vestara beautiful and astride him.

Then their force presences merged, and they made love, moving as one, feeling the pleasure they gave each other.

-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-

Abernaa knew what her captors were trying to do by being nice to her. Her guard, in particular, was determined to become her friend. He’d almost immediately started to bring her meals to her, and even cooked them in front of her on occasion.

What spoilt the effect was that, no matter how much she plead, cajoled and begged, her shackles stayed on, and stayed locked tightly against her skin.

She wasn't ever going to become part of any sort of friend of the Sith guarding her. Even when he tried to be friendly... she felt like he was playing a part.

-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-

Baron Silva Protegendo looked at the defiant togruta, or whatever she was, with a sneer. He'd tried to become her friend, and potentially a confidant, but she'd rebuffed him at every turn. She looked semi-human, which he hoped wasn't the case. That the greatest species in the galaxy should have procreated with a togruta... he didn't want to think about it.

He was going to do his duty, though.

"You, half-breed." He said. "On your feet, now."

He got a hateful glare in response. "Sit on it and rotate!" She shot back. "I've already been to the 'fresher, sleemo."

"You are not going to the refresher. Your transport is here. And you are going to be on it in ten minutes."

All of a sudden, her manacles dropped open, and she sprang at him, driving a Force-empowered punch at his armoured midriff. He barely managed to dodge it, or the follow-up, a scything kick at head height. He responded by drawing his lightsaber, and a pistol.

On the third attempt, he successfully stunned the hybrid girl, having narrowly avoided a fist, kick or force attack seven times while he tried to line up a shot.

-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-

Abernaa woke up for the second time in two months unexpectedly locked in chains. This time, though, she was flat on her back, humiliatingly naked, and wearing a collar around her neck.

There were also five male Sith sitting in the cargo hold, in full armour, their hands on their weapons.

"You are awake." One of them hissed. "If you are foolish enough to try and escape, we will activate your shock collar. We've fitted it with the components of a device intended to control wookies."

"Go hook up a power coupling with a hutt!" Abernaa replied. "And take your buddies with you!"

"You are insolent." The speaker replied. He raised a small silver device and pressed a button.

All Abernaa felt after that was burning, agonizing pain, until she blacked out.

-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-

On Nar Shaddaa, Ahsoka gasped slightly when she felt her daughter's pain. Anakin turned grey, with tears in the corners of his eyes, and Bariss started to cry.

"Astrus," Ahsoka whispered. "Take Anakin and Bariss to the secondary safe-house. If I don't ask you how the nexu cub is when I call you next, go dark."

"You're travelling to meet Luke Skywalker." Astrus reminded her.

"He's the son of the man who killed Anakin Skywalker. And who then gave his son my Master's surname rather than his own."

"Prongs, he saved the galaxy from the Empire." Astrus pointed out, using his pet name for her. "He destroyed the Death Star, then helped Darth Vader kill the Emperor."

"He helped his father kill the only man between them and uncontested rule of the Galaxy." Ahsoka said. "If Palpatine hadn't killed Vader in the process, Luke Skywalker would be Emperor Vader the Second."

"Are you sure that...?" Astrus asked.

"Skyguy would never, ever have turned on the Order!" Ahsoka insisted. "He didn't trust them, but he'd never have betrayed them!"

Astrus decided to stay stum on that point.

Wearily, Ahsoka clambered into her Actis-V, a gift from Lux, before activating the scrambler on her A-Wing's communications system, before placing a com-call to Luke Skywalker. He was the last human she wanted to speak to, but if it would save her daughter's life... she'd willingly swear herself to Palpatine's ghost.

When the call went through, she made sure it was voice only, and began reading her pre-prepared script.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Predictably, this was actually the first chapter for this story that I ever wrote. I then managed to frame it within a story. I know where this is going, and can promise one more update before the start of May, owing to my university studies.


	5. Chapter 5

In the morning, Ben came to, still pleasantly muzzy from the night before. Vestara was curled up next to him, her head resting on his shoulder. One of the things Ben enjoyed most was these moments, before Vestara came to, and when her barriers were completely down. There was a warm softness to her face in those moments, compared to the usual watchfulness and wariness. The scar at the corner of her mouth, which made her look as if she was always smiling allowed her face to look peaceful, and happy.

He smiled as he gently left the bed, tucking her under the covers more fully, before pulling a tunic over his shoulders and heading for the galley.

He was unsurprised to find his father waiting for him, in a Jedi under-robe. Being a Jedi meant they always knew where each other happened to be, and what they were doing. He knew, from his father's pose and stance that he'd been looking at a small holo-locket he kept around his neck.

Luke Skywalker turned around, with a surprisingly typical look of buried grief. "Ben." He said, managing to banish those emotions, at least from the front of his mind.

"Dad." Ben replied, smiling at the sight of arguably the most powerful man in the galaxy looking like a hung-over farmer.

"How's Ves doing this morning?"

"She's curled up like a kitten in our bed." Ben replied. "We had a talk last night, about why I sometimes need certain things."

"How did she take it?" Luke asked, curiously. Behind him, individual grains of cocoa powder were sifting themselves into three large mugs. Ben grinned at the sight of them. His father's featured a portrait of Anakin Skywalker, standing back to back with an unidentified togruta female, who looked to be about five years younger than Anakin had been. Artoo had been interrogated, but, as per usual, the file had been sequestered. The mug had been found in a souq on Nar Shaddaa, that specialised in Old Republic antiques. Luke had stared at it for an extended period, while Ben had seen the way he looked at it, and traded an autograph from Luke Skywalker himself for the duraplast mug.

He'd come up with the idea of carrying a book of autographs while talking to his father, who'd repeatedly lamented that his credits were rarely accepted in the Outer Rim.

Ben's mug featured Ewoks and trees. Vestara's carried an even older emblem, which even Luke Skywalker hadn't seen very often. The design consisted of a republic starbird split vertically with an imperial insignia. On the other side, a portrait showed a vaguely distinct face, almost completely erased by time, with a cartouche underneath. He could still make out blond hair, and a teardrop face below it, ending in a strong jaw. It was old, battered enough that Ben guessed it pre-dated the Ruusan reforms, possibly by millennia. Like his father's mug, it was cast from duraplast.

Luke Skywalker was looking at the mug as well, with a pondering look on his face.

"She took it fairly well. Even made a bad joke." Ben said, before looking at his father's gaze. "Dad?" He asked.

"You know when a face almost looks familiar?" Luke asked his son. "Whoever was on that mug once... I think she might have been related to your namesake."

"Really?" Ben asked.

"Just a thought." His father replied. "There were a number of force-users whose names echoed down the ages, once. Revan. Metra Surik. The Hero of Tython. The Barsen'thor. Lana Beniko. Senya Tirall. Arcaan Tirall." Luke paused. "We know almost nothing about any of them, or their acquaintances. We only have their names. Perhaps, before the Empire..."

Through his bond, Ben felt Vestara come to, missing her hot water bottle. "Duty calls." He said, collecting two pint mugs of hot chocolate.

Luke sat back on one of the luxury stools his wife had insisted on fitting the ship's galley with. Then, there was a surprise. His personal commlink went off, with the tone assigned to a truly unknown combination.

"Master Luke Skywalker." He said, in a tone that invited the speaker to tell him their name in return.

"Master Skywalker; Years ago, I served with Anakin Skywalker in the Clone Wars. After the end of that conflict, I spent some time apart from the galaxy, and returned to help whoever I could. Some years ago, I found myself drawn to settle down with a partner who cares about me as much as I do them. Now, I need your help. You may be my child's only hope. Come to the Lehon system, and we can talk, even if you are the son of the man who killed Anakin Skywalker in cold blood." There was a click, and the commlink went dead, with only a disconnected tone produced.

Sitting down, drinking his cocoa, Luke digested the message. It'd been a female voice, with what sounded like a pre-prepared script in front of her. That would normally have set off more alarm bells than a reactor meltdown on a star destroyer. What he felt, though, was that whoever had been calling him was genuinely in need of assistance. Her voice had also been scared, at least for another.

He'd be setting course for the Lehon system soon enough, he decided. After he'd finished his morning cocoa. Some things could never be rushed.

-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-

When she saw Ben come through the door with the mugs of Luke Skywalker special blend, Vestara's initial reaction was to squirm more upright. Inevitably, that action displayed her chest fully. Ben maintained his concentration on their mugs, before dotting a kiss onto his girlfriend's mouth as she took hers. There was a brief flicker in the force, and the door slid shut behind him, activating both the Force and sonic damping fields.

"Morning, Ves." He said, getting back into their bed. His hot chocolate went on the side table. Vestara's joined it, as she looked at her boyfriend with a grin that was only amplified by her scar.

Ben pounced in that moment. Vestara squirmed underneath him as he took full, gentle control of her wrists, and pulled them up to the head of the bed.

"Unhand me!" She yelled. "How dare a brute such as you attempt to ravish me!"

"Because I so admire your beauty." Ben replied, as he captured his girlfriend's wrists, pressing them down above her head. Then he reached out with a flicker of thought, brushing her mind for consent. Vestara would have punched him if her hands had been free. She was at his mercy, and he wanted to ask for permission now? What she wanted was him.

Ben smiled, then gently kissed her on the tip of her nose.

-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-

From the cockpit, Luke could guess what the pair of them were doing _very_ easily as he programmed the hyperdrive. Grinning, he shut himself down in the Force, allowing Ben and Vestara more than the privacy that a closed door and dampers provided them with. He'd been able to feel the sheer strength of their bond on their first night as lovers, when they came to tell him they were now in a full relationship. It'd almost felt like their presences had been welded together, which made him more than slightly nervous. He could remember the way that the mrykr strike team had ended up so tightly melded they were finishing each other's sentences. It was pretty much the only reason he'd allowed them to take over the spare stateroom, other than the damping fields. Sometimes the Force made Wraith Squadron look like a herd of banthas. At other times, it felt like it was standing just behind him with a club.

At a guess, it was probably going to take his son and Vestara about two standard hours to finish getting up, go through the shower, and get their clothes on properly. "Kids." he muttered, with a fond smile.

Then he placed a call to the temple switchboard, knowing he needed some answers.

The call went through quickly. "Jedi Temple. how can I help you today?"

"Good Afternoon. This is Master Skywalker. I need to talk to Masters T'ra Saa and K'kruhk."

"Connecting you now, Master Skywalker."

There was a brief high quality rendition of a alderaannian classical orchestral piece, before he was connected to a small conference room.

"Master Skywalker." They greeted him, in a slight chorus. "What do you need to know?"  T'ra Saa asked, the Netti Jedi Master looking at the camera, while K'kruhk sat in the background, looking peaceful.

"I need to know about any female comrades my father served alongside, and who then ended up travelling the galaxy." Luke said.

"He didn't have many, Master Skywalker." K'kruhk said. "And even fewer of them ended up travelling the galaxy. Have you got a copy of The List handy?" He asked Saa. Luke knew what they meant. He'd entrusted the two of them with compiling a list, based on imperial records, of Order 66 survivors, fugitives, and those who were missing from imperial records as confirmed deaths.

Luke pulled out his datapad, and opened his copy. "Go ahead." he said with a nod.

"It's a very short list, Master Skywalker." K'kruhk said, while Saa nodded in the background. One estimate suggested that just 30 Jedi had survived the consequences of Order 66. "But there is a name we have never been able to confirm into either category." He flipped up a hologram of a togruta about Ben's age. "This is the last holoimage the Order had of Ahsoka Tano, your father's padawan."

"He trained a padawan?" Luke asked. "There was nothing in any of the records, or his records..."

"He trained her, until she was the victim of a horrific miscarriage of justice. He arrived in the courtroom with evidence that cleared her moments before she was sentenced to death. Saa said. "Afterwards... The Council made a mistake. One of the most senior members blamed her ordeal on the will of the force, having refused to listen to reasons she might be innocent. She resigned from the Order when he then offered her a promotion to Knighthood. The last time the Order had contact with her, she was walking down the steps of the temple, en-route to her new life out in the galaxy."

"She never made contact?"

"No. I can understand why." Saa said. “What happened to her, as Master K’kruhk said, was a travesty.”

"What do you know about the Lehon system?" Luke asked, after a pause while he digested what she'd said.

Both of them looked more than slightly nervous, as Luke continued.

"I know it was the scene of a decisive battle about four thousand years ago, between the Republic Navy and a Sith fleet, and that Revan was involved." Luke said. "I don't know why a fugitive Jedi would make her home there."

"Master Skywalker..." K'kruhk said, after a moment. "Lehon is stronger in the dark side than Korriban itself. If Ahsoka is there, she will have been twisted by her experiences."

"As the son of the man who trained her..." Luke said. Then he heard a voice echoing in his head.

"Luke." it boomed, in a voice similar to his, but deeper. "Go to Ahsoka. Unless her experiences have changed her beyond recognition, she is too stubborn to have been changed by Lehon. Tell her to stop being so snippy when you meet her. And that I love her as much as the daughter I never had the chance to raise."

Luke smiled. "According to an old friend of hers, she's as stubborn as a ronto on heat." He said.

"I hope you're right, Master Skywalker." K'kruhk said. "Your father always made a ronto on heat look pliable."

They ended the call after a couple more minutes of conversation. Luke smiled slightly, before settling back to meditate. If he was going to meet someone his father had been close to, he wanted a chance to meditate first.

-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-

Ben's eyes were still stinging after his wrestling match with a very wet and soap-sud coated Vestara. Both of them had ended up with shampoo in their eyes, nostrils and mouths, which had been barely noticed until Vestara had pinned Ben to the wall in an armlock, and proceeded to tease him with an arm around his waist.

Neither of them had noticed until afterwards that all Ben had been thinking about was running his finger up the side of her body until she begged him for mercy. He'd also used the Force to do some _very_ interesting things to her, and ultimately broken her grip.

All his id wanted to do, as they assisted each other in dressing, was to tickle her, and hold her down while they strengthened their bond.

Vestara was blushing as furiously as Ben when they felt the ship reverting from hyperspace, and then rapidly re-vector. Five seconds later, they were out of the door of their cabin with their lightsabers in their hands but unignited, sprinting to the flight deck.

Luke Skywalker watched them come through the door with a smile.

"No pirates, Dad?" Ben asked.

His question was asked at roughly the same time Vestara asked "None of my people?"

"No." Luke said. "I got a message from an old friend of my father's. She needs our help."

"Does she know that..."

"Not from what she said." Luke replied. "She believes that Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker and Darth Vader are different people. My father has given me a message for her."

-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-

Ahsoka looked away in a state of shock as she closed the connection. When Darth Vader’s son had introduced himself, he’d sounded like… she pushed the thought away. There was no way that Skyguy and Darth Vader had ever been the same person, regardless of anything she’d read. It was one of the most popular conspiracy theories in the galaxy; that Darth Vader was really Anakin Skywalker. Ahsoka had ignored that idea from the second she’d heard it. Her Skyguy had been fun, amusing and a friend. Darth Vader had been a murderous tyrant who had a nasty habit of executing senior naval officers for ‘failure.’ There was no way they were ever going to be the same person.

_Was there?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Had this already written. Just needed to tauten it up, and spell-check it. This will probably be it until early may, as I have exams to revise for.


	6. Chapter 6

When the _Shadow_ dropped out of hyperspace, three days later, Luke looked out of the window and gasped.

Near the star, an artificial ring of debris orbited, along with the fragments of a gigantic station, still bright silver. Among the debris, Luke was able to pick out fragments of capital starships, the tumbling remains of starfighters, and fragments that could only be shuttles.

Closer to the star, there was a sight that reminded him of Kaut: a ring of metal, reflecting the light from the system primary.

He could also feel an sense of darkness, as if he was standing on Korriban.

 _It’s this bad here…?_ He thought, checking his distance from the planet identified as Rakata Prime. _Five AU… and I feel like I’m standing on the surface of Korriban itself?_

Luke shook his head for a moment, looking over at the two teenagers sitting next to him. Ben was in the co-pilot’s seat, while Vestara sat in the communications chair. Although she was a competent pilot, she’d never been taught how to operate the _Shadow_. There was also a security system, which Luke preferred not to have to reprogram without access to a machine shop, an astromech droid, and the holonet.

Ben’s forehead was creased, and he was clearly feeling the sheer dark power, just as much as his father was. Vestara had a more conflicted look, which was reflected in her presence. On the one hand, she was awed by the sense of darkness and the power that it promised. On the other hand, it was threatening for her, as if it threatened to wash away what she was now.

Then he felt a flicker of thought passing between the two. Vestara relaxed back into her seat, while Ben grinned, turning his attention back to the sensor panel in front of him.

All it showed was blankness for a couple of seconds, then a single drive source flared into life, almost at the edge of the effective range of the _Shadow_ ’s sensor suite. An algorithm quickly compared it to a military database, before pinging up on Ben’s HUD that the craft was a ETA-5 A-Wing Interceptor. A holodisplay popped up after a moment, showing the craft retracting its landing gear.

“Dad, there’s an A-Wing headed our way.” Ben said, after a moment. “Looks like it was parked on one of those fragments.”

“Clever.” Luke replied, reaching out with the Force, very briefly. The presence in the seat of the starfighter was frightened, determined and strong. Luke instinctively classified whatever being that presence originated from within the top few percent of the Order. “Strong, as well.” Luke looked over the pair sitting in the other two seats in the cockpit. Ben was wearing fairly typical clothing for a Jedi; tan, loose fitting robes and trousers. Vestara had been garbed in the only replacement clothing on hand after Dathomir, but was now wearing dark, comfortable clothes which met the same criteria as Ben’s.

Setting the ship’s autopilot to intercept the A-Wing, Luke headed through to his quarters. Opening the air-lock to whoever was in that shuttle dressed like his father’s son, his gut told him, was a bad idea.

-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-

Ahsoka came out of her hibernation trance when the remote sensor package she’d planted three hundred thousand meters from her A-Wing, along with a small generator, told her a ship had arrived.

Pulling up the image, she saw a familiar grey, non-reflective yacht, coasting through space with the velocity of a hyperspace arrival. Her research had shown the ship in the background of many pieces documenting the return or departure of a Skywalker from Coruscant, so it was almost certainly the right ship.

She’d grown used to the oppressive presence of the system after a few hours. It was uncomfortable, but it didn’t feel like a threat to the togruta.

After a few seconds, she retracted her landing gear, releasing the magnetic clamps attaching her starfighter to a four thousand-year-old chunk of reactor. Almost as soon as they were clear of the debris, she opened the throttle, cruising towards the other starship, half a million kilometres away.

Then she felt the touch of another Force presence, reaching out from the other ship. For a moment, it was like staring into a star, and then her inner eye adjusted to the intensity of the presence.

 _Wow!_ Ahskoa thought to herself. _Even Skyguy…_ she blinked back memories of her master. It’d somehow felt familiar, though. There had been something about that mind that…

She shut the thought down. Luke Skywalker was not Anakin Skywalker’s son. He had died on Coruscant. Darth Vader, whoever had been inside the suit, had killed him.

And then someone appeared, kneeling on the fuselage of her starfighter, just in front of the cockpit. A familiar wry grin looked in at her for a second.

 _‘Hello, Snippers’._ She heard, in a very familiar voice.

And then the figure dissipated. (1)

Ahsoka shook her head, pressing on with a renewed sense of vigour.

Before long, the yacht was swelling in her forward viewport, and actually swung around to match vectors with her.

“Unknown A-Wing, this is _Jade Shadow_ , over _._ ” She heard, coming from her headset. The device used a fabric band connected to an induction loop and an actuator to allow her to hear what was being said.

“ _Jade Shadow,_ this is A-Wing Able Tango Six Thousand Five Two Eight Six Three Niner, requesting docking instructions, over.”

“Able Tango Three Niner, would you prefer to land or tube, over?”

Ahsoka hesitated for a second.

“If you’ve got a hangar…” she said. “I’ll use it, over.”

“Opening hangar now.”

Ahead of her, at the rear of the yacht, a pair of doors slid apart, revealing a starfighter sized hangar bay, complete with mag-con field. Kicking her thrusters slightly so her relative velocity exceeded the yacht’s by a few metres per second, Ahsoka made a slow, careful approach, before neatly touching down in the centre of the docking bay. To her frustration, the approach lights weren’t perfectly aligned, but it’d been a while since she last flew.

A small use of the Force keyed shut the hangar doors, before she clambered out of her starfighter, removed her helmet, and waited for the door to open.

-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-

Once the hangar was fully pressurised, Luke wasted little time. Opening the compact hangar, he stepped through the door, to be confronted by a female togruta in her late thirties. With bright orange skin, white facial patterns, and blue montrals patterns, she was striking.

And significantly younger than him.

A second glance took in the form-fitting orange-brown flight suit, and the bubble helmet under her left arm, along with a pair of lightsabers on her belt.

“Ahsoka Tano?” He asked.

The mixture of tones in Luke Skywalker’s voice took Ahsoka by surprise. He was surprised, yes, but not very surprised. And somehow, he knew who she was by sight.

Her hands dropped to her lightsaber hilts, almost without even thinking, as her body told her to fight.

Luke Skywalker’s hands didn’t even twitch towards his weapon.

“Ahsoka… stop being so snippy.” He said. His tone of voice was authoritative, but not threatening.

And then she knew.

The sense of her heart breaking echoed across the gap between the two force users.

“No…” she whispered. “NO!”

Luke was shocked as the togruta started yelling, before sinking to the deck, sobbing.

And he did the only thing he could think of.

He wrapped his arms around the broken-hearted togruta, and just held her, gently.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It’s been a tiny bit longer than May 2017…  
> I lost the thread of this story, along with all my other in-progress works, for most of a year. I’ve been writing odd bits here and there, and this is the latest offering on this particular tale. As always, any feedback is welcome.  
> (1) I was planning something here, but it didn't come out right.

**Author's Note:**

> I am very interested in any feedback for my stories, and will attempt to respond to any questions or comments within 24hrs. Feedback always makes my day a little bit brighter.


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